Category Archives: Technology

How VidAngel’s New Service Works

Overview

Welcome to the brand new VidAngel service! Things are a little different than before. We now offer filtering through your favorite streaming services and offer you unlimited access to original VidAngel content.

Here’s how to get started:

Go to www.VidAngel.com and login

Select “Subscribe Now” (your first month is FREE!)

Enter your payment information

Connect your Amazon and Netflix accounts to your VidAngel account

Once you’ve connected your VidAngel account to your streaming service accounts, the movies and TV shows you have available to you through those services will appear under the movie categories on your VidAngel app or VidAngel home page.

Logging In/Creating An Account

Signing Up

New customers can create an account by entering their email address in the Sign Up field or clicking Sign Up (in the top right corner).

Logging In

For returning customers who used the previous VidAngel System, you’ll be able to regain access to your account, by clicking the Login button in the top right corner of the screen.

After clicking the Login button, you’ll be directed to sign in to your account. If your login credentials no longer work, click the “forgot your password?” link.

If you have any trouble re-setting your password, contact us at Support@VidAngel.com.

Subscribing

After signing up or logging in, you’ll need to subscribe (even if you were a user of our previous service). When you access your account, you will see the option to subscribe right in the middle of the page. Click the blue Subscribe button and let the fun begin!

Connecting to Netflix and Amazon

Before you connect your VidAngel account to your Netflix or Amazon accounts, your VidAngel will show only VidAngel exclusive content.

Once you’ve connected your VidAngel account to your Netflix and Amazon accounts, the content you have available to you will appear both on the Home screen and the Categories screens.

Once you’ve connected, you can search for titles by browsing though the Home screen, searching on the Categories screen, or using the search function (the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of the screen).

Benefits of a VidAngel Subscription

VidAngel’s mission is to allow families everywhere to filter movies and TV shows as they wish. The benefit of our new system is to open up a wide range of movies and TV shows that are available to families through their subscriptions to Netflix and Amazon Prime that they would otherwise not be interested in watching due to the type of material they contain.

In addition, the new VidAngel service also provides the added bonus of watching some of the movies and TV shows you already love with the filters that make these shows more user-friendly for some of the more sensitive audiences you might like to share them with (e.g., kids, parents, in-laws, dates, etc).

VidAngel is also adding tons and tons of exclusive content, which includes the internet’s largest library of clean stand-up comedy, and fun shows like “Life on Bitcoin” and “Tim Timmerman: Hope of America.”

If you have any other questions, please let us know by clicking here. You may also find what you’re looking for in our FAQ article.

They’re finally here! Since we launched in June, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV have been among the most requested apps. We hear you!

After lots of hard work and some courageous bug fighting, we’re happy to announce that the VidAngel apps for Amazon Fire TV and Android TV are now publicly available! You can find them on the Amazon Appstore and Google Play starting today.

Now you can watch & filter your favorite streaming accounts however the bleep you want right from the comfort of your couch!

We’re excited to get these into your hands and look forward to your feedback on how we can improve.

Hooray, now you don’t have to turn off parental controls on Netflix or Amazon to use VidAngel!

Existing free trials that started before 6am MST on July 5, 2017 will be extended until the morning of August 5, 2017.

Now, that the system is humming smoothly, the next thirty days will be 100 percent focused on publishing a ton of new content.

Happy filtering,

Neal Harmon, CEO

VidAngel

VidAngel is not affiliated with or sponsored by Amazon, HBO or Netflix. Amazon, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Instant Video are registered trademarks of Amazon Technologies, Inc. Netflix is a registered trademark of Netflix, Inc. HBO is a registered trademark of Home Box Office, Inc

We’re pleased that Amazon is working again (we’ve implemented the proper security features for your Amazon account).

We regret to inform you that now we have a technical glitch with Netflix streams. This is frustrating because your account connects to Netflix, but VidAngel is unable to fetch your stream for filtering at the moment. We have a fix in the works. Again, we need to ensure that Netflix’s systems know that you’re real people wanting to filter just as we need to on Amazon. This is something we learn to do better and better as more of you use the system.

The good news is that we’re continuing the free trial extension until the service is working for you. And you’re able to enjoy VidAngel Originals and filtering on your Amazon Prime, Amazon Rentals and HBO accounts in the meantime for free.

Best regards,

Neal Harmon, CEO

VidAngel

VidAngel is not affiliated with or sponsored by Amazon, HBO or Netflix. Amazon, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Instant Video are registered trademarks of Amazon Technologies, Inc. Netflix is a registered trademark of Netflix, Inc. HBO is a registered trademark of Home Box Office, Inc

We promised you an update today on the situation with the Amazon connector (which also impacted Amazon Channels HBO). We’re pleased that we just published the following updates to the website, iOS, Android and Roku beta:

App interface for confirmation codes for Amazon.

Two factor authentication support for Amazon.

A series of backend and app fixes.

Please update your iOS, Android or Roku apps to have the latest code and fix for Amazon. These updates should solve the vast majority of problems customers have experienced. If you have connected before, please disconnect and reconnect to implement the improvements.

The buttons still say down for maintenance but will soon be switched to a message that says: “Having issues? See Help Section.” Even though the buttons currently say “down for maintenance”, you can click on them and try connecting. Let us know at support@vidangel.com or in the comments below if you run into an issue.

If the weekend is smooth and things work for people, we will update the buttons again so that it’s clear the system is operational.

Thanks again for your support and patience.

Neal Harmon, CEO

VidAngel

P.S. A few people have had trouble with the Amazon connector for Game of Thrones and other programs. We have learned that the fix is disconnecting your Amazon account and reconnecting. That clears out your old session and establishes a new improved session and fixes the issue.

We need to apologize for a very rocky launch. We messed up and you all deserve better.

First, our Amazon connector is temporarily down for maintenance, but once we get it back up and running, we’ll be sure to extend your free trials to begin again when Amazon starts working. In the meantime, enjoy Netflix, Dry Bar Comedy, and VidAngel Studios licensed shows for free.

What Happened With Amazon?

We’ve been testing our service for months and things were running smoothly so we thought we were ready to launch.

Then this happened:

We never dreamed we’d have more interest than before we were shut down. We should have had more faith in our fans and prepared for more traffic, but we didn’t. These traffic numbers have made this week a nightmare for all of you and our entire team. We have had the executives, marketing, finance, content and everyone helping the support team. Our tech team members are working around the clock. Everyone is exhausted. Our customers who were wanting to watch a movie worry free this weekend, now feel frustrated. Understandably so because we are just as frustrated. We wanted you to have a great weekend and thought we had everything ready.

Amazon Wants To Know You Are A Human

Amazon wants your account to be very secure and so does VidAngel. Here’s what is happening (and the fix is very straight forward):

You give your Amazon credentials to VidAngel and the VidAngel servers become you in the cloud to help you filter your Amazon account (your credentials are encrypted and stored on your device only, not VidAngel’s servers, for security reasons).

When Amazon received so many requests to filter in a short period of time, its systems began asking for verification that you are really you.

The VidAngel app does not yet have a feature built in to let you make the handshake between you, a real person, and Amazon’s extra verification. We didn’t realize how many different verifications Amazon has until we had thousands of you hitting Amazon at the same time.

This extra step causes you frustration, so you try again and repeat the cycle which makes the problem worse for everyone because Amazon asks for more verification each time you cannot prove you are you.

This is a good thing. It means Amazon wants your account to be secure so they can ensure it is really you accessing your account.

How VidAngel Will Help You Stay Secure

VidAngel wants your Amazon account to be very secure as well. VidAngel is working on a technology to show you the verification messages from Amazon so that you can let Amazon know that you are a real person within the VidAngel app.

We hope to have a fix for this by next weekend. We’re putting everything we have into it.

Please accept our heartfelt apology fans; we’ll make it right (remember we’ll extend the free trial and you can enjoy everything else VidAngel offers for free in the meantime).

Neal Harmon, CEO

VidAngel

VidAngel is not affiliated with or sponsored by Amazon, HBO or Netflix. Amazon, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Instant Video are registered trademarks of Amazon Technologies, Inc. Netflix is a registered trademark of Netflix, Inc. HBO is a registered trademark of Home Box Office, Inc

As VidAngel has grown and reached a broader audience, a few new customers have begun asking if they can stream on VidAngel without filters.

The short answer is, unfortunately, NO.

The long answer is, VidAngel employs filters in compliance with current copyright law, but we believe in allowing our customers to watch movies however they want. If you want filters, VidAngel is your place to do it. If you want to watch without filters, we recommend one of these unfiltered streaming services:

VidAngel company celebration when we met our goal last week (we’re months ahead of plan). We went to the theatre together on paid time 🙂 We won’t admit how many of us teared up watching “Inside Out”

And here’s a fun, true story, in poetry:

Once upon a time, far-far away,

an amazing USAA mobile programmer from Texas,
found a new website that he loved more than breakfast.

This new VidAngel customer named Jed,
watched movies with his family before bed.

Well, he found a little bug,
that he offered to help plug

And became VidAngel’s tech team leader instead 🙂

Meet Jed: He has an infamous list in the company named after him, that pretty much the entire company operates around. He also gets to watch all the movies he wants for FREE.

* Lifetime of movies means $10,000 of non-transferable, non-refundable VidAngel account credit (or 100 SD movie nights a year for the next 67 years!). Joining Team VidAngel means that your referral joins the tech team and stays onboard for at least one year. We’ll give you one year of credit during the referred employee’s trial period. (credit will be disbursed at $150 per year – no worries, we will send you all the details)

UPDATE: 8/28/2015: Our iOS app is live and in the App Store! Download it now!

We’re happy to announce our VidAngel beta iOS app! With the app, you can stream purchased movies and TV shows on your iPhone, iPad or iPod. You can also cast to your TV via your Chromecast or Apple TV (using AirPlay). We’re working with Apple to enable purchasing within our app, but currently you can stream only movies or TV shows already purchased on the VidAngel website.

(8/25 – You don’t need these directions anymore. Simply go to the App Store and download our app) Since the iOS app is in beta, we’ll need to add you to the beta group if you’d like to try it before it’s published in the App Store (it’s so much better than streaming via Safari because you can Chromecast and the player remembers where you were on AirPlay). Here are instructions on how to get VidAngel on your device:

Send your Apple ID (It is an email address) to support@vidangel.com so that we can add you as a beta participant.

504 Error: The demand for American Sniper has overloaded our systems momentarily. We are working to keep our servers up, but it is far more traffic than we have had for any previous New Release and way more than we expected for this weekend while still in Private Beta. Thank you for your patience as we work to keep things running and upgrade the servers for next week. If you are having problems viewing let us know and we can get you a credit so you can watch your movie later.